Karoly sisters blast findings in multimillion-dollar will dispute

These are a few of the choice words being used by the sisters of disgraced Lehigh Valley lawyer John Karoly Jr. to describe a Northampton County Court opinion this summer that upheld disputed wills he submitted in their late brother's multimillion-dollar estate.

In a 61-page legal filing this week, attorneys for the three sisters blasted retired Bucks County President Judge Isaac Garb's finding that they had failed to show the wills were forgeries. They charged Garb misinterpreted and ignored critical evidence while accepting "preposterous and fabricated" claims by the other side.

Peter Karoly, a well-known medical malpractice attorney, and his wife, dentist Lauren Angstadt, died in a plane crash in Massachusetts in 2007.

Garb's decision in August represented a surprising twist in the legal saga surrounding the disputed wills and John Karoly Jr., a once powerful and now disbarred attorney who is serving 61/2 years in federal prison for failing to pay taxes on more than $5 million of income and other financial crimes.

The Karoly sisters charge that John Karoly Jr. fraudulently created wills dated 2006 for the late couple — a conclusion also reached by a 2008 federal grand jury that indicted him, his older son J.P. Karoly, and Dr. John Shane, who witnessed the documents.

But Garb's opinion found the sisters did not establish "by clear, direct, precise, and convincing evidence" that the 2006 wills were "forged and therefore invalid" — a conclusion he reached after presiding over lengthy testimony late last year.

Garb was assigned the case as a special master, and his findings would become an order of court if upheld. That's what the sisters' lawyers — Burt Rublin, Evan Krick and Daniel Cohen — are seeking to prevent, asking Northampton County President Judge F.P Kimberly McFadden to reverse Garb or order a new trial in front of her.

However, an attorney backing the 2006 wills said Friday that Garb got it right.

"It's certainly our position that Judge Garb's findings are fully supported by the record," said Robert Goldman, who represents John Karoly Jr.'s son Joshua and Gregory Azar Jr. They are two of the eight nieces and nephews who were the main beneficiaries of the 2006 wills.

Among the objections filed Thursday on behalf of sisters Kim Luciano, Joanne Billman and Candice Pamerleau:

•That Garb was wrong to accept Shane's testimony that he witnessed the 2006 wills, while dismissing that of the sisters' star witness, Jeff Fischl, who said John Karoly Jr. asked him to witness a "fake will" after the deaths.

•That Garb made "multiple" factual errors, mischaracterizing the handwriting and ink-dating evidence the sisters presented to show the wills were forgeries, as well as cellphone records they say backed their claims.

•That Garb wrongly stated that under the 1985 wills supported by the sisters, all three of them were beneficiaries. In fact, Pamerleau receives no financial benefit, adding to the credibility of her testimony, the filing says.

•That Garb gave too much significance to a loan document Peter Karoly signed eight months before his death in which he named as his executor Mark Crossley, a lawyer in his Allentown practice. Crossley was the executor listed on the 2006 wills, but not in the 1985 wills.

Peter Karoly made other false statements in that small-airplane loan application, the sisters' filing says in questioning the veracity of what he wrote.

"In one of these airplane-related documents, dated just one day before… Peter falsely lists as the airplane purchaser a company that never existed at any point, past or future," the filing says. "Peter even named himself as 'president' of that fictitious company."

The filing also notes that Crossley, though named executor, refused to be involved with probating the wills because he "feels so strongly that [they] are frauds."

John Karoly Jr., 62, is jailed at a federal prison in Devens, Mass., where he is slated to be released on April 8, 2016, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. He was sentenced in 2010 after pleading guilty to three counts of failing to pay taxes and being convicted of three counts of mail fraud and three counts of money laundering.

Karoly no longer has an interest in his late brother and sister-in-law's estate. He renounced it as part of his plea agreement, under which criminal charges over the wills were withdrawn against him, as well as Shane and J.P. Karoly.